The aim of our study was to assess utilization patterns of psychiatric services by asylum seekers. We included 119 adults who presented themselves at the University Emergency Department between 1 March 2012 and 1 January 2017 for psychiatric consultation. Descriptive data were compared with a control group of non-Swiss individuals with warranted residence permits using Mann-Whitney- and chi square (&chi;²) tests. Patients were mainly single, male, residing in reception centers, and presented themselves most frequently due to suicidal ideation. Almost 60% of the patients were assigned to inpatient treatments, with 28 involuntary cases. Compared to the control group, asylum seekers were younger and more often men ( < 0.001 for both). Further, they less often had family in Switzerland (&chi;² = 9.91, = 0.007). The proportion of patients coming in as walk-ins was significantly higher in the control group than in asylum seekers (&chi;² = 37.0, < 0.001). Asylum seekers were more frequently referred due to suicidal ideation and aggressive behavior than participants in the control group (&chi;² = 80.07, < 0.001). Diagnoses for asylum seekers infrequently included mood, as they often reported stress-related disorders (&chi;² = 19.6, = 0.021) and they were infrequently released home (&chi;² = 9.19, = 0.027). Asylum seekers more frequently demonstrated severe symptoms such as suicidal ideation and aggressive behavior and they were mainly treated as inpatients, potentially due to minimal social resources.